The Bihar Education Department Web Portal, 2011–2013

This page is an archival record of the website that once ran at this address for the Education Department of the Government of Bihar. It is not the department’s official website and carries no official status: from 2012 the department directed visitors to a new site at a different address, and everything described here is reproduced in the past tense, as captured on 5 March 2013.

The portal opened on a dark blue page under a banner that read, in Hindi and English, Manav Sansadhan Vikas Vibhag — Human Resource Development Department, Government of Bihar. That banner outlived the name: by 2013 the footer credited content to Education Department, GoB, while the older pages still credited the HRD Department, GoB. The department had been renamed; the artwork had not been redrawn.

The top row of the site offered eight destinations — Home, About Us, Organizational Structure, Contact Us, E-Forms, Tender, Best Practices and Feedback. Below it a scrolling ticker carried departmental announcements. Two columns of links framed the page: directorates, programmes and galleries on the left, rules, circulars and associated bodies on the right. In the middle sat two upward-scrolling boards, Whats New and Notice Board, a news rotator and a strip of photographs.

The portal's masthead banner reading Human Resource Development Department, Government of Bihar in Hindi and English — The masthead the portal carried throughout its life.

Who the Portal Listed in March 2013

Three portraits sat across the top of the home page, each with a name and an office. They are reproduced here exactly as the page presented them on the day it was captured; all three offices have changed hands many times since.

P.K. Shahi Hon’ble Education Minister
Nitish Kumar Hon’ble Chief Minister
Anjani Kumar Singh Hon’ble Principal Secretary

A separate page, Principal Secretary’s Desk, was linked at the head of the left-hand column, and a Who’s Who document listed the officers of the department.

Organisational Structure

The Organizational Structure link led to a single chart. It placed the Education Minister directly under the department, then ran down a spine of secretaries — Principal Secretary, Commissioner cum Secretary, Additional Secretary, Joint Secretary — before branching into the secretariat wings and the Directorate.

Organisation chart of the Bihar Human Resource Development Department, from Education Minister down through the secretaries to the directorates and their section officers — The department’s hierarchy chart, headed The Department of Human Resource Development, Government of Bihar.

Below the Joint Secretary the chart split three ways. A Deputy Secretary carried an Under Secretary, a Section Officer and an Assistant. A Director (Admin.) carried a Deputy Director (Admin.) with the same tail, and alongside sat a Deputy Director (Planning) with a Junior Planning Officer, and a Deputy Director (Statistics). The third branch was the Directorate itself.

Directorates

The left column listed six directorates, and the chart gave five of them their own chains of command:

Primary Education
Secondary Education
Higher Education
Mass Education
Administration
Research & Training

Primary and Secondary Education each ran Deputy Director, Assistant Director, Section Officer and Assistant. Mass Education added a Joint Director above that chain. Higher Education ran Joint Director, Section Officer, and assistant and support personnel. Research & Training ran Deputy Director, Section Officer and Assistant.

Programmes and Schemes

Under the directorates the left column repeated four of the same headings, this time for programmes and schemes rather than offices:

Primary Education schemes
Secondary Education schemes
Higher Education schemes
Mass Education schemes

Each heading opened a numbered content list rather than an article — allotment orders, sanction letters and circulars, one line per document, with a Click here beside it and a paging control at the foot. The Higher Education list, for instance, held a single entry on vocational courses and sanctioned seats for Patna University; the Primary Education list ran to several pages of allotment orders and district files.

Gender Cell

The Gender Cell was the one item the left column filed under Initiative, and the only part of the site with a page of its own rather than a document list. It opened onto six headings:

About Gender Cell
Gender Cell – Literacy_facts
Gender Cell – Gallary Walk
Gender Cell – Women Crusaders
International Women’s Day
Video

The cell also ran a state-level essay competition for colleges and universities on the role of women and young people in national integration; its results and the arrangements for honouring the winners at Bihar Diwas were among the notices posted on the home page.

Documents the Portal Published

Most of the site was a filing cabinet. The right-hand column and the foot of the left column pointed at the department’s paperwork, nearly all of it served as PDFs:

Orders and notifications
G.O. & Circulars, Notification, and the numbered letters that filled the directorate content lists.
Money
Budget, Plan/Allotment, Scheme Report and Asset returns.
Rules
Acts/Rule/etc, the RTI Act 2005, the Citizen Charter, and in the earlier layout the Right to Education and the Bihar Financial Rules.
People and posts
Who’s Who, Tender, E-Forms, and a consolidated district-allotment list for 34,540 candidates.
Reference
Data Bank, the CMD Centre, Publications, Millenium Development Goals, Best Practices and News and Clippings.
Jigyasa
A standing invitation to ask the department a question, linked at the top of the right-hand column.

Shiksha Darpan Call Centre

The ticker across the top of the home page opened with the Shiksha Darpan call centre and its toll-free number, 1800-345-6160, followed by a pointer to the department’s new website and a link to a Bihar Diwas special. Those three items scrolled on a loop and stopped when the pointer rested on them.

Associated Organisations

The right-hand column closed with a list of the bodies working alongside the department. The portal named them as follows, some in full and some by initials:

Bihar School Examination Board (BSEB)
Bihar Education Project Council (BEPC)
Bihar Intermediate Education Council (BIEC)
SCERT
B.M.S.P.
MDM
Bihar State Educational Infrastructure Development Corporation Ltd. (BSEIDC)
Kilkari
A.N. Sinha Institute

An earlier layout of the same column also offered three broader directories — Universities/Colleges, Government Departments and Public Utility Services — under the heading Important Links.

Photo Gallery

A strip of square thumbnails scrolled sideways along the bottom of the home page, and each one opened the gallery. Two subjects dominated it: Bihar Diwas, the state’s foundation day on 22 March, and Shiksha Diwas, the department’s own education day.

Bihar Diwas Publicity Hoardings

The largest group was a set of hoardings designed for Bihar Diwas 2011, each pairing the words Bihar Diwas and Sthapna Diwas with one facet of the state.